English chemist Derek Barton won the 1969 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, shared with Norwegian chemist Odd Hassel. Barton's 1950 breakthrough in conformational analysis (study of the geometries and their associated energies for a given molecule) proposed that the rates of reaction in isomers are affected by the orientations in space of functional groups, and laid the groundwork for determining the three-dimensional shape of organic compounds. He also developed a new and simpler method of synthesizing the hormone aldosterone (vital for the treatment of Addison's disease), and conducted research into the oxidation of saturated hydrocarbons and the behavior of oxyradicals.